Confectioneryphoto created by freepic.diller
Hello everyone!
Who doesn’t like a good dessert or cake with their coffee, as a snack or after a meal? The taste, smell and appearance of desserts make them irresistible and a sensorial pleasure hard to refuse!
Dieting or adhering to a healthy diet is not always an easy task. Some people find it very difficult to give up some culinary pleasures that are not beneficial to the body, often caused by their addiction to sugar or salt.
But it doesn’t always have to be this way. The solution for those who seek to be healthier, but don’t want to give up their favorite sweets, is functional confectionery.
The main objective of functional confectionery is to add to dessert recipes, ingredients with properties that bring some benefit to health beyond their basic functions like, for example, to be a source of energy. The idea is to make the body “function” better. But besides identifying the right ingredients, it is also necessary to know how to manipulate them so that during the preparation process the nutritional properties of the food are preserved and maximized, ensuring physiological and metabolic effects on the body.
The bioactive compounds present in the functional foods are responsible for maintaining the health of individuals, preventing and treating diseases, such as: antioxidants, fiber, minerals, vitamins, good fats, prebiotics and probiotics.
Functional confectionery transforms versions of traditional sweets and recipes – which often bring back good memories – by substituting and incorporating their own organic healthy ingredients, which will maintain the characteristics similar to the original ones, but won’t harm the body. These products are often consumed during dietary re-education, lifestyle changes, or for some restriction, where traditional products need to be avoided. But in fact, healthy dessert and cake recipes can and should be used by everyone, who seek healthier options for their lives.
For me, functional confectionery is precisely this: the union between health and the pleasure of eating well!
Functional confectionery does not include, for instance, white sugar (or processed sugar), which is replaced by more natural alternatives, such as monkfruit sweetener, demerara sugar, coconut sugar or xylitol, which do not cause glycemic peaks like white sugar.
In addition, it is also free of gluten, dairy, trans fats or artificial dyes. It is instead rich in fiber, mineral and many healthy nutrients, like collagen, and in some cases even protein.
The type of flours that are used in functional confectionery also have health benefits, because they are mostly whole grain. Many of these flours can be used for people with allergies or more serious health problems, such as gluten intolerance or celiac disease.
Conclusion: if you can make the same cake or dessert in an healthy version, without losing flavor and consistency, why would you keep making them with lower quality ingredients and harm your health and the health of your family and friends?
I hope you agree with me, but I am truly open to different points of view and perspectives. Please share your thoughts with me, writing them down below!
Stay healthy and have a sweet day!
Yours,
Leonor.